Friday, May 6, 2016

This award is a tribute to the vision that a roomful
of women crime writers had nearly 30 years ago, and it’s a most fabulous
prelude to our birthday celebration, which we’re beginning this fall. That it
comes from our partners in crime makes it especially fitting, and especially
wonderful.

This award also acknowledges all the officers,
chapter leaders, and members who have made Sisters in Crime a true sisterhood,
and who have done the hard work of bringing about change – bettering the lives
and careers of all crime writers, because when women prosper we all prosper.

And in that spirit, I would like to ask everyone in
the room who is a member of Sisters in Crime, including our brothers in crime,
to please stand, and let me thank you.

And to the rest of you, we can take care of that.

I’d like to thank the past presidents and current
board members here tonight:

Sara Paretsky, past president and a founding mother,

Margaret Maron, past president,

Catriona McPherson, immediate past president,

and Lori Roy, our treasurer.

I also want to acknowledge our Executive Director,
Beth Wasson, who is not here tonight. She will be at Malice Domestic this
weekend, so if you’re headed down there, please congratulate her when you see her.
Sisters would not be what it is without her.

Of course, there is still work to be done.

When a man says he won’t read a book by a woman,
there is work to be done.

When a bestselling male author says from the stage
at a major writers convention that women cannot write thrillers, there is work
to be done.

And when there are white readers, some of them
writers, who can’t tell you when they last read a book by an author of color,
there is work to be done.

And so, we will continue doing the work for the next
30 years, and more.